I also play guitar. I can tell you this problem isn't limited to drums. Most mass-produced guitars come with strings best described as "adequate" since guitarists' string preferences are just as personal as drummers' drumhead preferences.

Sadly, I know a fair number of people who quit playing guitar because they couldn't make their low-line acoustic guitars "sound right." That usually means they couldn't play chords very well because the stock strings were stiff and thick so they wouldn't break right away. All they needed was a new set of strings but they walked away from the instrument thinking it was their problem.

I think about this every time I see a no-name luan drum kit on Craigslist with the bottom heads taken off the toms, duct tape and/or weatherstripping stuck all over the batter heads, photographed in a cold corner of an unfinished concrete basement.